One of the first things I'd like to do to my rig, is black out the headlights. I have been watching DIY videos today, as opposed to buying a new pair, they are a bit pricey, to see if I can tackle it myself.

The biggest question I have is the adhesive used to seal the lamps. I can see how to get it off, and separate it, but what is missing is how or what adhesive to use once you're done with painting the housing. Has any one attempted this and can give me some insight?

 

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/mo...lue-52004.html

 

What diy vids are you watching? I tried this with my 19 headlights because i had done it before on my 2005 tacoma. It was super easy to bake the light and pull it apart. The ford did not go so well. The vid i saw was for the 2015-17 lights and he said to bake it at 260 for 15 minutes. On my lights that did nothing to the adhesive but it did make them too hot handle. That was about it. I was not going to stick with the stock chrome no matter what so i started experimenting. I ended up baking my light at 325 for 35 minutes and it still would not pull apart. I destroyed my light trying to take it apart by the heat method. So i bought new black lights and chalked it up as a learning experience. You would have to cut them open from my experience. Too time consuming to be worth it. I'd rather spend the cash and be done.

 

Having issues with the forum allowing me to upload photos. Will post as soon as I figure it out.
I started the process and it is very hard and time consuming. I have done this in the past with corvette headlights and they were 100% easier to do. I ended up heating at 320 for 15min , make sure you have the lights on a piece of wood and not directly on metal. I then just started going around the edge removing the excess rubber glue and bending the outside edge away from lens. Don’t worry the edge can be heated and reshaped to the original. Might have to throw back in multiple times to keep housing hot. Even at 320 It took 2-3 heat cycles and lots of prying. Huge pain in the ***.

 

 

Wow, that looks awesome. Sell me a set??

 

That does look flipping awesome. I definitely want to get it done, but it sounds like the 2019 lights are going to be out of my wheel house being very much a noob to this. I suppose I could just suck it up and buy them instead. Either way, I definitely want to get them done. Thanks for the info and they look great!

 

Photos of the headlight disassembled. The chrome bezel is removed with 6 torx screws, wet sanded with 320 then 1000grit. I used a matte black paint.

 

Questions:

1. Don't you still have to have the orange reflector for the parking light? It looks like you painted it black. Just wondering on that.
2. I heard oven cleaner takes off the chrome from the plastic after several minutes, did you try that before hitting them with the sanding paper?

Statements:

1. Those turned out nice. Good job.

 

I wrapped the orange reflector in vivid air release film. Sanding the chrome was simple, a couple quick passes and it was done.